Being Sick Disrupts My Life

The ER trip last night ranks up there with some of the worst. Oh the worst is still the first one; the 18 hour ER trip that I had to do pretty much alone. But last night was pretty close. The hospital looked like a hotel from the outside. Light and palm trees. They valet park your car for you so that you can go straight into the ER. Nice step huh? The troubles didn't start until we were inside the doors....

Tampa General Hospital (shown above) really was trying to be a different hospital. They offered me a wheelchair right inside the door. Of course I'm tough so save it for the guy who might come in in an hour who got run over my a motorcycle.

I filled out the entrance paperwork; name, DOB, SSN, reason for visit - all very standard. Under reason I put "severe abdominal pain". The woman behind the nurse said something to the affect of "have you had these tummy issues before?" to which I responded "I have Crohn's." She said that when someone puts 'severe' they've usually dealt with something chronic. Okay... at least she's paying attention. Then she tells the nurse inputting my information to, instead of putting severe abdominal pain, to just put Crohn's flare up.

This is the beginning of the end. Once they think they know what's wrong with you it generally turns to a bad visit. I told her the pains were more sever than typical Crohn's pain. But of course she's not listening at this point. She enters all my information and I'm directed to the waiting room. I'm triaged pretty quickly and, although all my vitals seem to be okay, the nurse has me in as an "actual 3-Urgent." Each ER will label the incoming at triage. This gives them a real idea of what the emergency is. Now, either she really thought I was urgent or she changed the number once I left the room. I thought there was still a chance but 4 hours later I'm still sitting there... waiting...

I noticed this was a trauma hospital before we got in. UC Davis is a trauma hospital, and it's also where my 18 hour trip was. So I was fearful but my last trip I was treated like a child who wasn't taking my vitamins so we had to try something different. I ended up, between the pain and the discouragement of knowing they probably couldn't do much, if anything, for me, just going home.

I've got a paper to finish today. I've got a house to clean and puppies that need outside time. I've got a move to plan and get excited about amongst many other things that need to be done. Being sick is just a big disruption in my life. I wish I could just take it all back and be normal. But the best I can hope for is holding on til I get home where I can get my medication and be my form of normal. So I'm back to holding on and holding out.

California here we come.....